KENTWOOD, MI -- A Kentwood man has pleaded guilty to taking cell phone images of his girlfriend's 14-year-old niece as she undressed to get into the shower.

Attorney George Krupp at first said his client, Steven Stick, denied the crime allegations. Prosecutors took Stick's guilty plea this week as part of a deal in which they would dismiss an additional charge of using a computer to commit a crime.

More than a year passed before the teen came forward, in September 2012, to talk about what happened. The girl told police she was staying with an aunt in May 2011 when she undressed to take a shower before school. She watched as a green cell phone with a camera on it appeared under a bathroom door.

"(The victim) advised she covered up with a towel and the cell phone disappeared," Kentwood Police Detective Brian Hedburg wrote in an arrest affidavit. "(The victim) said she then went to get back in the shower and saw a hand holding the cell phone again and she shut the curtain on the shower."

The teen girl told police she did not tell anyone of the incident right away because she was "scared" of Stick.

When contacted by police, Hedburg wrote, Stick said he "has taken pictures with his phone under the door just for fun, not knowing if anyone was in the room."

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors will take no position on the possibility of a judge sentencing Stick under the Holmes Youthful Trainee act. The act would offer Stick the opportunity to have the criminal conviction wiped from his record if he successfully completes the requirements of a probation term.

Typically, capturing images of an unclothed person is punishable by a possible five-year prison sentence.